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Birthday With A Difference

It was my birthday last Saturday and I celebrated it a little differently than usual. I have been known to have birthday weeks, especially when we were in Kalgoorlie as I had a Kalgoorlie birthday, then a Perth birthday with my family and then another Perth birthday with old friends. Over the past 15 years hubbie and I have been together, I have woken up next to him all except one year; I was in Perth and flew back to Kalgoorlie early on my birthday… But this is the first year I haven’t even seen hubbie at all He is in U.S.A. for work… but I did Skype him at 12:30am on my birthday to ensure he was the first person to wish me Happy Birthday!!

I then spent my birthday and the following day volunteering at Oz Comic Con, the first time it has been to Perth! What is Comic Con? I have been surprised how many people have asked me that. I thought it was common knowledge. Or maybe I have just seen more Sci-Fi shows/movies than the usual person and picked up what Comic Con was… Comic Con is a fan convention (or con!) in which fans of comics, fantasy and sci-fi books, TV shows and movies gather to hold programs and meet experts and famous personalities, among other things. Since 2008 Supanova has been coming to Perth, but now we have two big conventions in town!

The big draw cards of our first Oz Comic Con were William Shatner (James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise i.e. Star Trek and also Boston Legal) and Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver and Star Gate SG-1). There were other stars such as Patricia Quinn (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13 – my autograph to the right and photo below), Jason Momoa (Star Gate: Atlantis and Game of Thrones – my autograph above) and Callum Blue (Dead Like Me, The Tudors and Smallville – photos and autographs below). So I was extremely excited, and so were 27,000 other Perthians!

I really wanted to see Richard Dean Anderson and Callum Blue. Growing up I was a big MacGyver fan and among a million others, couldn’t wait to own a Swiss Army knife! Last year at Supanova I got Callum Blue’s autograph and oh my god is he a most beautiful person. Stunning blue eyes, infectious laugh and he is so personable and takes time to chat to everyone. So when I heard he was coming to Perth again, I wanted (desperately?!) to have a photo with him!

I was volunteering with my youngest sister and we were helping ‘man’ a shop. So each day for 12 very long feet-hurting hours we sold lots and lots of Disney paraphernalia, autographed photos, framed autographed pictures and other bits and pieces. I managed to sneak away (I pulled “It’s my birthday” card!) and get a photo with MacGyver. Basically the photo experience was “My name is Michelle”, “Hello Michelle”, flash and then me: “Thank you so much!”. Mr Anderson was super popular and I didn’t get my autograph until around 6:30pm. I was third last in the queue. I asked if he would write Happy Birthday on my photo, to which his personal assistant said “no personalisation”, but Richard was super sweet and started writing ‘Happy Birthday’, to which I went “ahhhh, that’s so sweet”. He then asked who it was for and I said “Michelle”. He then looked up and asked “Is it your birthday today”, and I said yes… to which he said “Happy Birthday!”. He was something like the fifth person to say Happy Birthday to me in person!!!

Sunday was super mad. A couple of Oz Comic Con organisers said that Sunday would be slower than Saturday… but I don’t think they know Perth that well! After some desperate “can I go get a photo” questions etc, I got a photo with Eddie McClintock (to the right). And then I went to get two photos (it was my birthday weekend after all) with Callum Blue. I walked into Callum Blue’s booth and said “I get two photos with you”, to which he replied “We’ll have to do something special for the second one.”. We took the normal one and he said “So what should we do?”, I said “I don’t know, poke our tongues out or something?”. He said “Narh, lets pose for a kiss”. Now I can be a bit of a giggle pot when started and I just laughed. We posed and I swear it was long enough for a photo, so I pulled away cracking up (and doubling over)… but no, we had to pose again! The photo was taken and Callum said he had to check it out, to which he laughed and said I must be a good actor!!!

Later on I lined up to get my autographs with Callum and then Eddie. As I said Callum chit-chats. I was about fifteenth in line, but I was waiting for over half an hour. My feet were killing me by this stage, so I was leaning from side to side trying to get my weight off my feet. After many sweet-talked fans it was my turn. He laughed when he saw my photo and said to his assistant that it was his favourite photo of the day. I said I had smsed my husband about it and his response was “Yay!”, and I didn’t know what that meant. He said that I should tell him we slipped some tongue in after the photograph. I laughed and said something along the lines off that he was in the states at the moment so he wouldn’t know. To which Callum said “F-k him, lets nick off then!”… more of my laughter followed. Callum handed me my photos and said “Great snog!” in his English accent…. More laughter. I was on cloud nine. Best birthday ever!!!

My parents also came to Oz Comic Con on Sunday and were there for 6 hours!! Mum got a photo and autograph with William Shatner (she loves him off Boston Legal) and they also saw the R.D.A. (Richard Dean Anderson) and William Shatner panels. They thought the panels were great. Dad was beaming after seeing R.D.A. He said he was so funny. Apparently R.D.A. glanced over his shoulder and saw himself on the big projector screen and said “oh my god, I am old and fat”! He apologised for the weight, saying he had had a couple of operations over the past year or so on his foot and leg, and just couldn’t exercise to shift it. He then tugged on his hair and said “This? This is just me being lazy”…. I love it!!

After some house cleaning and chill-axing on Monday, I went to visit my folks in the hills on Tuesday. It was the puppies first visit to the grandparents! After the struggle of me getting them in the car by myself including two escapees and one near miss; the drive there was a success. Meeting their cousins Leo (German Shepherd) and Daisy (West Highland Terrier) was also a success! Except for Macbeth (less than 3kgs) and Leo (over 60kgs) had a couple of growls – Macbeth’s instigation. Had my Mum in fits of laughter!!!

I made my birthday cake this year. Actually the cake was supposed to be my first Christmas Cake and was made in November. But I had so much cake last year that I didn’t fancy it. So after many top ups of brandy, I iced my cake last week. A layer of marzipan stuck on by apricot jam, and then some Royal Icing the next day. The recipe I made was my Mum’s. It came from a recipe book Dad gave to her in September 1971 (Marguerite Patten’s Every Day Cook Book in colour)! We are not sure why Dad gave it to her, as the month has no significance, but maybe it was to help her cooking out. Well she was only 16! And kudos to Dad, because Mum is an amazing cook! (I’ll post the recipe on my Tumblr site tomorrow if you’re interested http://michelleslabyrinth.tumblr.com/)

So to ensure my cake looked like a birthday cake I added blue dragons and blue flowers!!!! I love my birthday cake

It was a wonderful different birthday. Thank you to all the smses, voice messages and messages on Facebook. Oh, and I did make a little purchase on my birthday with my birthday money from my Grandparents… Signed Supernatural Season 7 framed photo. Yay! My birthday filled with all my favourite boys!!

One more thing, I have been enjoying Season 1 of Dead Like Me again, and Mandy Patinkin enjoyed a piece of Key Lime Pie in the ‘Pilot’… I see/hear pie everywhere now! A couple of pie blogs will follow soon

Last thing – sorry for my dodgy photos. I took them with my iPhone. Was too lazy to go upstairs and scan my photos. That and I want to keep the best quality of the originals just for me